


One Step at a Time

by CommonNonsense



Series: Overwatch Ficlets [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Development, M/M, Punk Hanzo, honestly just a lot of navel-gazing about his new look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 13:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17264789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonNonsense/pseuds/CommonNonsense
Summary: It takes time for Hanzo to learn to let himself have anything. He starts small, and works his way up.





	One Step at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Originally based on this post, which I can no longer link to the original blog (alas): http://kerfufflewatch.tumblr.com/post/167788500336/once-hanzo-starts-living-the-way-he-wants-to-with

It starts simple. 

Three weeks after learning of Genji’s true fate, Hanzo pulls himself together enough to recognize he needs to leave Japan. Before he does that, he needs to restock a few things. It’s mostly basics–food rations, extra supplies for his arrows, the usual things. He’s on his way back to the hypertrain station when he passes a storefront, and there he pauses. 

It’s a wide glass window for a clothing shop, with a handful of white plastic mannequins modeling the latest fashions. What catches his eye is a t-shirt at the end: black, fitted, emblazoned with blue and silver geometric designs, sleek and modern. He considers it for a long moment. Other pedestrians walk past him, going about their day without so much as a glance in his direction. 

He hasn’t bought much in the way of clothing in many years. He has three different  _gis_  in his duffel bag, precisely one pair of scarcely-worn jeans, and a handful of threadbare t-shirts. He has the money, if he so chooses, but he does not need frivolous clothing when what he has is plenty. Besides, the Shimadas were a family deeply steeped in tradition, from the structure of the family to the clothes they wore–-even with modern or functional twists, everything he does now is still wrapped up in hundreds of years of tradition.

Except. 

Except he hasn’t been part of that family in over 10 years. Not really. And the one member of his family left who matters to him, who turned his entire world upside-down three weeks ago and left him questioning whether he was a decent man at all–-he had always been the one to buck tradition. That used to make Hanzo’s blood boil, watching Genji dye his hair and line his eyes in makeup, discard his traditional wear for clubbing outfits whenever the whim struck him, while Hanzo fastidiously maintained the persona of the ideal Shimada heir.

But now, who is left to stop him besides himself?

The saleswoman looks startled when Hanzo slams the t-shirt on the counter and pays with a handful of bills and coins, but she rings him out with the practiced poise of a retail veteran. Hanzo shoves the shirt in his bag, and forgets about it until he is on the train. 

–

He comes across it again some 12 hours, a train ride, and a short plane trip later, while he’s unpacking his bag in a cheap motel room. For a moment he is startled before he remembers where the garment came from. He feels a little ridiculous now, having purchased something like this on a whim. Too late to return it now, though. He could give it away, he supposes, or simply discard it somewhere.

The fabric is sinfully soft to the touch, unlike the fraying, stiff cotton of his  _gi_. Hanzo drags his fingertips over it as he considers. 

With a burst of spiteful energy, Hanzo rips off his  _gi_  and grabs the new shirt, pulling it on over his head as he steps into the tiny en-suite bathroom. He might as well  _try it on_  before he gets rid of it. 

When he looks in the mirror, he is a little startled by his own reflection. The shirt fits well, surprisingly so: tight across his chest and shoulders without being uncomfortable, loose at his waist but not so much so that it hides his figure. The geometric designs are metallic and catch the light when he moves.

He looks …  _good_. Fit. Like a normal man in his 30s would.

He keeps the shirt.

–

Hanzo goes through his clothing in the morning. He can’t bring himself to get rid of his  _gis_ , but he’s willing to admit that perhaps there’s room for improvement in his wardrobe.

Over the next few days, he purchases a handful of new shirts, two new pairs of pants, a pair of casual boots, and a very fine gray canvas jacket with a high collar. He spreads the purchases out, feeling uncertain and a little ashamed each time. But there is no one to punish him but himself, and what reason, precisely, does he have to wear worn-out clothes when he is capable of replacing them?

The jacket is particularly expensive, and he feels a little guilty when he purchases it, because what purpose does it really serve? It’s certainly  _warm_ , which is needed in some places, but he could have gotten something warm for half the price.

He bought it because he wanted it, he admits to himself. Because he likes the way it looks on him, how it makes him look a little young and punkish and fashionable. He purchased it the same way anyone else purchased clothing–-because he likes it. 

He wears the jacket when he treats himself to lunch that afternoon and gets two separate compliments on it. They make him smile, for no reason he can discern.

–

Years of guilt and self-hatred still weigh upon him, and that is well-deserved. But it’s as though allowing himself the simple luxury of a new wardrobe and a couple of good meals has lightened it slightly, taken some of the load off of his shoulders. 

He had thought his traditions to be his armor, an affirmation of who he was. Maybe they were more akin to chains. 

–

Normally Hanzo cuts his own hair, and it’s a simple affair: cut the bangs out of his eyes, trim the bulk back an inch or so to an acceptable length, and trim his beard while he’s at it. 

He’s never done much with his hair. It was always easiest to leave it long, and he took a certain amount of pride in keeping it clean and soft and shiny. The gray at his temples was annoying, but one could argue it lent him a certain distinguished air. Growing up, there had not been much discussion about what he did with his hair at all, although it was always tacitly implied that he had better not do to it what Genji did to his own. 

He hopes he won’t miss it too much.

The barber carefully combs out Hanzo’s hair, separating out a rectangular section on the top of Hanzo’s head and clipping it back. Everything else is swiftly removed with a pair of electric clippers. Thick locks of Hanzo’s hair drift down the slope of the bib around his neck and onto the floor. 

Hanzo stares at his reflection in the mirror, trying to decide whether to be horrified or pleased. The barber pulls out the clip that was holding back his hair, and it tumbles down the back of his neck with a mere fraction of its original weight.

“What do you think?” the barber asks. 

Hanzo takes a deep breath, in and out. “It is good,” he says. He smiles at his reflection, surprising himself. “Thank you.”

–

It takes awhile to shake off the shame and guilt associated with his newer spending habits, and a little longer still to shake off the regret of shaving off most of his hair. At one point, he nearly throws half of his things away, disgusted. How in the hell has Hanzo Shimada become such an undignified, rebellious child? It will take  _years_  to grow his hair back, and the funds he has wasted could have gone to something else–-

He only stops himself when he remembers that there is nothing else. That there is nobody he has to perform for. That not even his employers know what he looks like, and they pay him handsomely enough.

That Genji told him he could be a good man, if he forgave himself.

–

He shouldn’t have done in the piercings in the fall. As the weather cools, stepping outside for more than thirty seconds causes the stainless steel to freeze, which in turn freezes the tender flesh in his ears and nose. He finds himself touching them all the time, too, cold or not. The piercing artist had explicitly told him  _not_  to do to that except to clean and rotate them while they healed, but he can’t help himself; his hands automatically reach to fidget with the small hoops in his ears whenever he remembers they exist. 

He still likes them. 

–

Hanzo ends up buying a larger duffel bag to accommodate his new belongings. He feels a touch of shame, at first, until he remembers that everything he owns, besides his archery equipment, can  _still_ fit within a single bag. For 38 years’ worth of catching-up, he could be doing much, much worse.

–

A few months after Genji’s return, Hanzo pauses in front of a bakery, where a glass display case shows off a variety of seasonal treats. It’s Christmas Eve and London is full some such displays, though many of the shops now are preparing to close. He eyes a small, lushly-decorated strawberry cake, quietly deliberating on purchasing it (but knowing, in the back of his mind, that he has already decided to). Then he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the glass, and he stops.

He recognizes his own reflection just fine. He has seen it dozens of times in these last few months as he's made the changes that he has, watched the slow transformation as it must look to someone else. But something strikes him this time, and he does not know why, but it causes his breath to catch.

Not long ago, he would have walked past this shop entirely–-he would not have even spared it a glance, dismissing it as frivolous. Today, though, he stands in front of it without a second thought, his primary concern being how he would transport the remainder of the cake. He does so with a haircut and piercings and a fine canvas jacket that might actually make him unrecognizable at a distance, bedecked in things that once upon a time he would have told himself were unseemly.

Hanzo isn’t sure what to make of it. To call this happiness or contentment might be too much. There is still too much to atone for, too much to strive toward to call himself happy. An improvement, however . . . that is something he might onsider.

He smiles a little to himself, and steps into the bakery. 


End file.
